29/10/2025
In 2008, I got accepted for a job as a field officer in a private company that is located in the province of Rizal. Since I grew up in the city of San Jose Del Monte, which is one bus ride away from Metro Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, at first, I thought that the Province of Rizal would really look like a province. You know, that should be full of forests, rivers, and mountain trails, but it's not. Yes, it still has a lot of mountains, but it's mostly a city.
A place that I easily learned to love. A place where you can walk from here to there; everything is so close to each other. From malls, groceries, restaurants, and my favorite fast food and convenience stores! Many parts of the mountains were turned either into villages or subdivisions.
A place with beautiful streetlights where you can enjoy walking in your stilettos as you please any day or night without people seeing you as a weird woman in stilettos!
After a month of being a trainee, finally, I am so excited for this day. This is the first time I'm going to do a field search by myself, and I know, "I am more than ready for this!"
It was dawn when I tiptoed my way down the ground floor of the staff house, where I live with the other field officers. It's early— I wanted to make sure that I'll be the first one to use the “Golden Bathroom!” Don't get me wrong, but what I'm meaning to say is that in this past month I learned how being the last one to use this bathroom can surely affect your day as a field officer.
When I was already on the ground floor, I quickly ran to the bathroom and held the doorknob. I pushed the bathroom door open when I felt a shock!
From behind someone tapped my shoulder.
"Oops, sorry, but I got here first!"
I look where the voice comes from, it's Sir Rudy, one of the head field officers. He is smiling at me as he takes a sip of his coffee.
"Nice try, Leslie!" he said to me. I answered with an awkward smile.
“Hmm, maybe my morning didn't start as I had planned, but this day will surely be great!” I whispered under my breath while checking out myself in the mirror.
I achieved the semi-formal looks I needed. I even got to put on my makeup well. My below-the-knee blue jeans dress and, most importantly, my brand new white stilettos I bought yesterday at the mall. They're on sale, and they're branded. This day surely deserved it!
As field officers, it's our responsibility to find where the students live who can become our private company scholars. To properly communicate and make the parents of these scholars understand our company goals.
While sitting inside the service van in which we were riding, I read some of the students' answer sheets. My eyes caught by the answers of one student to the question.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
She answered . . .
"I want to work where I can earn a lot of money to move into the village so we don't need to walk barefoot anymore."
I just find it weird; her address on her answer sheet is exactly the village. So what's with this barefoot thing?
After an hour of riding, we finally got to the village where we needed to do the field search.
It's almost nine in the morning, and since it's already October, the air in these tropical countries is quite cold which is so great for us, especially for me since this skin of mine liked the cold weather more than the summer.
We were amused! We really saw quite a lot of people walking barefoot. It's just that their feet are filled with mud, and their muddy footprints left marks on the village's cement roads. When it's not even raining and everywhere you look in the village is covered in cement. So where did they exactly get those muds?
Soon we started to walk our separate ways. But after an hour of walking, I found only a few students in our listing. It's weird when all of the students in our listing are all addressed in this village. And this place is not so big anyway, yet I still had a hard time looking.
I crossed paths with Heidi, my co-field officer. who is always so beautiful, like a so-called "white angel," no matter what she wears. She was even blessed with good height, though it's natural since I heard her father is a Westerner. She's also wearing a pair of pink stilettos.
"Why is it so hard to find all of this?" she asked me while looking so tired while holding a can of soft drink.
Exhausted, we decided to sit at the side of the road. Soon, two pretty, tan-complexioned teenagers who look like twins pass by in front of us. They were wearing very clean flippers and were not barefoot. I decided to ask them if they happened to know where to find these students.
They look at each other. "Ah, the squatters!" the one almost shouted as she spoke with wide eyes.
"Ah, Mam, you should check the other part of the river where you can find the people who are often barefoot!" added the other girl.
I don't know what my expression was at that moment. Although I felt a little sad. I don't even know why. But now, little by little, I think I'm starting to understand.
We followed the path the teenagers told us. We walk the long path of the street until we reach the end part of the cemented road, where the wetland is indeed there. There's a small passage on the right side of the wall. I continued walking when Heidi shouted at me.
"Are you sure we're really going there?" "Look, I'm wearing white pants!" You could see the worries in her pinkish-white face.
"And look, we were both wearing stilettos!" "And mine are white, see!" I replied to her while pointing at my shoes.
"Come on, let's ask the boys to do this!" "Let's go! We can't do this!" She said as she turned her back on me.
"But we're already here; we should do this now," I told her in a loud voice.
But it didn't work out. I ended up getting her list and going alone instead.
Scared to get wounded by the stones, I did my best to walk my shoes through the mud to get to the river. A river that mostly looks like a creek. It's just that it's quite clean. It became like a creek, maybe because the village is covered with stone walls and only this very small part is left open as a passage. I guess the village owner left it open for the people who live by the river.
I was carefully walking, but the wetland was so slippery that I ended up falling!
"AHHH!" I shouted while falling.
I really ended up in the river!
I felt so irritated. My dress got stained with mud and my new shoes were filled with mud that they became too heavy for me to walk.
Thanks to that slip, I instantly ended up in the river— full of mud!
I wanted to cry out of irritation and self-shame, but what good can crying do for me now in this situation anyway?
I look at the other part of the river. I saw a lot of houses that were made with bamboo and wood, and some were made with plain sheets. My body may be tired of going, but my mind is in agony.
“I'm already here, I got mud on my shoes, and I'm afraid that they're already broken! This is why, no matter what, I should really go!”
I'm the kind of person who, when I start something, will surely see it through to the end.
"I only just needed to cross this river anyway!" I kept whispering to myself.
My mind is so stubborn. This time I stood up firmly— full of eagerness. I cleaned the stained parts of my jeans dress and took off my stilettos and cleaned them in the river too. Thankfully, my shoes didn't break. I guess I still have a reason to be happy. I fixed my hair, checked my face, and put on a little makeup. Now I'm ready again! I held my stilettos and my plastic envelope that's full of student files and decided to start walking barefoot too!
If you only saw what I looked like that time— I looked like a pitiful, wet duckling trying hard to become a swan!
The river is not too deep, and it's quite clean. But the water is cold, and it makes my body feel the chills. I clearly know how to walk in waters, on seashores, and in rivers. We often had outings in the river when I was young because it's near where we lived. But still, this is my first time walking barefoot in wet, muddy lands and such a stony river, and I will tell you, it's Holly hard!
That's why I wonder how these little children can do this every day. When I got to the other part of the river, an old woman approached me.
"Young Miss, are you lost?" she asked.
"No, I'm not, Mam. I'm here to look for some students and their guardians concerning a scholarship from our company," I politely said to her.
The other people looked at me as if I were some kind of tourist who got lost. A tourist holding her stilettos and a plastic envelope? I can't help but feel self-conscious.
The old woman's plain expressions change. "Scholarship? Really? That's great news for us here, Miss!" she happily said as she held my hands. I felt the coldness of her hands.
"And you even came all the way here; you're barefoot now too. Come here, I'll wash your feet!"
They were so welcoming that I felt shy and overwhelmed. "Ah, I'm fine, mam, it's alright!" I nearly gasped because no matter how I refused, she still pulled me into her house.
Outside her house, which was made of plain sheets, she washed my legs, no matter how I insisted.
When I looked around me, I felt as if I were already in another world. From here, you will clearly see the village. Almost all the people who live here are barefoot. Even the scents here are different from the village, where you mostly smelled the cement and the smoke from motorcycles and cars.
Here I felt the provincial life that I had almost forgotten. The place that I have missed so much. After that place where I lived and grew up turned into a city. The scents are very natural, and I like them. You will even smell the scent of the firewood that most of the people here used in cooking. You will also hear the sounds of the flowing river and the roosters.
The old woman even lent me red flippers that still look new. Maybe she didn't use it, but without any hesitation, she just lent it to me, a stranger from somewhere. She is so kind.
Naturally, when you get to places like this, you will feel unsafe and unsecure. But to me . . . It was the other way around. Here somehow, I felt safe and secure.
I started looking for the students on my list, and yes, I've found them here— all of them. I sincerely talked to them and their guardians.
Many of the students here look intelligent but lack self-confidence, and it makes my heart sad.
In an old bamboo house, I found and met Melissa, the student who caught my attention in her answer sheets earlier this morning.
Melissa is fourteen years old. Her father worked as a carpenter. Her mother worked as a housekeeper in one of the houses in the village which pushed her to take on the role of a young mother for her other four younger siblings. Indeed she looks so young, her body frame is thin. But I guess these life situations of theirs made her mind more mature!
While having conversations with them, I found out that many of them come from the capital city, Metro Manila. Melissa's family once lived under the bridge. And yes, they are really called squatters. And this area they live in is what other people in the village call a squatter area. Most of the people here come from other provinces and once tried their luck and fate in the capital city. But failed and ended up living on the streets and under the bridges.
You can also call them NPA, which means People with No Permanent Address. They were moved here with other squatters. But the land where they were living was sold and turned into a village. That's why they were pushed to move here by the river. The river is unsafe, especially for the young children.
Melissa said that her younger cousin was found dead in this river six years ago after a heavy storm. This is why she said that she really wishes to get out of this place . . . And that she doesn't want to walk barefoot anymore.
The riverside is full of mud, so it became hard for the people to walk in flippers, and they chose to walk barefoot instead.
Melissa said that she hated some of the children in the village for calling them parasites who used the village as their address when, in fact, they were squatters.
I asked her what she wants to be when she grows up, but her answer is still the same as the one she wrote on her sheets. She said she wanted to have a good and permanent job. To earn money, to move to a permanent home, and to have a permanent address.
While listening to this child who's sitting in front of me with clear, beautiful eyes, I realized she's right. Instead of chatting about crushes and playing with her friends her age, here she is cooking food for her younger siblings.
These situations made her and the other children here wish for something permanent. But sadly, because of these situations, many of the children forgot to have permanent dreams.
Right now, I may not be well-off, but thanks to my grandparents, we have a place we can call home— our permanent home. If not, then maybe I will be like Melissa. wanting something permanent but forgetting something very valuable. That is to have a permanent dream!
That's why I should work really hard now and make sure to give my child a permanent home in time.
After I'm done talking with her guardian. I decided to bid my farewell. But Melissa's mother insisted that I eat lunch with them. I felt that I had already received so much from the people here, and kindly welcoming me is more than enough. So I decided to say no, so her mother gave me a biscuit instead. Which I heard was given to her by the child of her employer in the village, which will be weird to not accept. They even gave me the flippers I returned. They said it was their way of thanking me for doing my best to go to their places.
People here may be called squatters, but their behaviors and personalities surely are not. Because most of the people here are nice and hardworking.
When I walked back to the village, I still had sweat all over my face, and my makeup had already faded. I look at my tiny foot, which is wearing the red flippers they gave me. I smiled as I looked at the biscuit and my stilettos, which I'm holding in my hands.
I took one last glance at the squatter area where I'd been. I felt good and contented. Now I know what my purpose is in this job of mine. It is to give hope for the children like Melissa. I wanted to give her a chance to have a permanent dream!
When our service van came, we rode back to our staff house. Today I realized that I like this job a lot and that I will surely love it.
Maybe my day didn't start wonderfully, but I know in myself, in my heart, that I will never forget this day. And whenever I remember this village we've been to today, I will surely remember Melissa and everyone in there.
I learned a lot from them, including that living with no permanent address can affect someone's life in many ways. I will not let myself forget this village, especially the villagers in barefoot.
© PHIL SUMMER
